UV-light promoted formation of boron nitride-fullerene composite and its photodegradation performance for antibiotics under visible light irradiation

A series of C 60 /BN composites have been synthesized, which can efficiently photodegrade TC under visible-light irradiation. Compared with C 60 /BN-D6 and C 60 /BN-V6 synthesized under dark and visible-light irradiation, C 60 /BN-U6 synthesized under UV-light irradiation has the largest adsorption and photodegradation performance for TC under visible-light irradiation. FTIR and XPS characterizations suggest that C 60 /BN composite is most likely the charge transfer composite, in which C 60 acts as electron acceptor and BN acts as electron donor. UV-light has the best promotion effect for the formation of C 60 /BN. The adsorption quantity of TC by C 60 /BN-U6 is 2.77 times higher than that of BN (131.05 mg g −1 vs. 47.27 mg g −1 ), being due to that C 60 /BN-U6 has higher surface area than BN (135.7 m 2 g −1 vs. 18.8 m 2 g −1 ). The photodegradation of C 60 /BN-U6 for TC follows Z-scheme heterojunction mechanism, as well as the photo-induced ·O 2- and h + are the dominant photoactive species. Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) method is applied to evaluate the toxicity of TC and its photodegradation intermediates. The photodegradation rate of C 60 /BN-U6 for TC is 19.19 times, 10.06 times, 5.83 times, 2.73 times and 1.84 times higher than that of TiO 2 (P25), g-C 3 N 4 , BNPA, BCNPA, and BN/TiO 2 , respectively, implying that C 60 /BN-U is a good metal-free photocatalyst.